Outlook For Regional Water Supply Improves

Water levels in Lake Okeechobee are still far below the regional water supply needs, but projections for a recovery by the end of the summer rainy season have improved slightly.

Planners at the South Florida Water Management District told the agency`s governing board Thursday that the lake could reach 14.5 feet by Oct. 1 if the region gets only average rainfall.

However, that prediction is based on continuing the controversial practice of backpumping polluted agricultural canal waters north into the lake, Peter Rhodes, district director of resource planning, said during the meeting in West Palm Beach.

The district staff is prepared to continue backpumping until the lake reaches a point where the water supply is sufficent to reduce to 20 percent the threat of a 1986 water shortage.

The governing board is expected to decide today whether to continue backpumping for the duration of the rainy season.

Johnny Jones, executive director of the Florida Wildlife Federation, urged the district to stop backpumping, and to find long-term solutions to both the problems of water supply, and of water quality in the 600,000-acre Everglades Agricultural Area.

``Everytime you backpump you drive another nail into the coffin of Lake Okeechobee,`` Jones said.

District officials said their rainfall studies indicate the agency will need to draw the stormwater runoff from the agricultural area about once every seven years to make up for shortfalls in the regional water supply.

The water draining from the area south of the lake -- mostly sugar cane fields -- is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers. Loading the minerals into the lake through giant pump stations causes an ecological unbalance.

In 1981, the state Department of Environmental Regulation ordered the district to attempt to reduce the amount of nutrients pumped into the lake by 1988.